


The Last Magic of Summer

by bluebeholder



Category: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Movies), Supernatural
Genre: Autumn Equinox, F/M, Fae & Fairies, M/M, Mythology - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-22
Updated: 2017-09-22
Packaged: 2019-01-04 04:19:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,377
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12161403
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluebeholder/pseuds/bluebeholder
Summary: Percival takes Queenie to a feast of the Fair Folk on the night when Summer and Winter are equal. The Erlking, too, brings his mortal lover.It's one hell of a wild night.





	The Last Magic of Summer

**Author's Note:**

> The Crossover That Nobody Asked For But I Wrote Anyway!!!!
> 
> This is a crossover between the fae!Graves universe and the Wild Hunt universe (ongoing) I'm working on for Supernatural. It is pure, self-indulgent insanity. 
> 
> Enjoy!

“What’s so special about a garden in the middle of the city?” Queenie asks as they walk through the leaves. It would be dark, but Percival has summoned faerie-fire to light their way. Golden sparks and stars dance around them in the night.

“It sits upon a ley line,” Percival says. He looks down at her, eyes dancing. “It’s a place of power, and on a night like tonight, when day and night are equal…”

Queenie nods, looking around. “Like the summer solstice.”

“Very much so.”

They break out onto a pathway. They aren’t supposed to be here, this long after dark, but there are advantages to having one of the Fair Folk for a boyfriend. Side by side, unnoticed by the eyes of mere mortals, they wander down the path and deeper into the gardens. The green darkness is full of faint sound, the distant sounds of the city muffled. It’s humming with magic—Queenie can feel it in her teeth. Her heart is racing just a little, not with fear, but with excitement.

“After tonight, my power begins to wane,” Percival says abruptly. “I’ll be no great creature then, only a mere elfling with delusions of grandeur.”

She smiles up at him. “You couldn’t be a mere anything if you tried. You’re just you.”

“A compliment, unbidden? Be still my heart,” Percival murmurs. He pauses and bends to kiss her.

Soon enough they come to a temple of white marble that sits on the shore of a lake, waters stretching out smooth in the darkness, lit by the light of Percival’s golden faerie-fire. Queenie steps into the small pavilion at Percival’s urging, looking out over the waters. He joins her, handsome in his older-than-medieval garb. He’s wearing jewelry, for the first time since they met, an elaborate gold torc around his neck. And as Queenie looks up at him, she sees that he’s subtly changed, his ordinarily handsome face drawn into sharp relief, looking predatory and lean. The points of his ears are emphasized, and when their eyes meet she sees the rippling leaves of forests and the golden summer sunlight in his irises.

“Are you afraid?” Percival asks with a faint, sharp smile.

“Never of you,” Queenie says, curling her hand around his. She feels wild and fey, just now, wearing all white as he’d asked, hair loose and feet bare.

Out of thin air Percival plucks a crown of flowers. He sets it on her head, tucking her hair behind her ears. “Vervain for enchantment and phlox for souls united,” he says.

Queenie holds her breath. She thinks, for a moment, that he’ll kiss her—

—and then there’s a step behind them.

Percival whirls, electricity snapping through the air, and Queenie spins around too, looking at what—or, rather, who—is disturbing them.

Two men stand there, one a human man with middle-length brown hair and kind eyes, the other clearly not human, tall and proud with a rack of antlers on his head and eyes so black that they look like the water of the lake. Both of them are shirtless, though the human wears boots, and the other is barefoot. Knives hang from their belts, the kind of knife that Percival had called an athame. The human looks just as stunned as Queenie is, but the fey man smiles.

“Well met,” he says, offering a slight bow.

Percival smiles, but he doesn’t relax an inch. He bows, too. “Well met, Lord of the Hunt. Out of your proper season tonight, are you not?”

The horned man laughs. “No more so than you are out of your proper place! And who is your fair companion, O King of the Forest?”

“A fair thing,” Percival says. He takes Queenie’s hand and guides her forward slightly. “My lover, Queenie Goldstein.”

Queenie’s floundering a bit as the horned man takes her hand and kisses the back of it, but she manages a smile. “Hi,” she says. “What’s—what’s your name?”

He smiles at her and her neck prickles with sudden nerves. “Few hold that secret,” he says. “But I am commonly called the Erlking, the Lord of the Wild Hunt. And this my companion is Sam Winchester.”

“Well met,” Sam says, in a strong voice, following the Erlking’s suit in kissing the back of Queenie’s hand. He doesn’t bow to Percival, though, but offers his hand.

“This is not your night,” Percival says, as Sam steps back. “I am surprised at your boldness.”

“’tis not bold, O King,” the Erlking says. “It is my power that waxes now.”

Percival inclines his head. “Tomorrow you will be the stronger,” he says, “but not yet.”

“Not yet,” the Erlking agrees. “You have brought your mortal paramour to the celebrations of the Equinox? With what hopes?”

“To share a celebration,” Percival says. He looks down at Queenie and she smiles at him, striving not to look nervous. He smiles, too. “I would show to her the final magic of summer.”

The Erlking laughs. “I would show the beginning of winter’s magic to my lover,” he says, clapping Sam on the shoulder. The tall man has the same stupid smile on his face when he looks at the Erlking that Queenie’s sure she’s got when she looks at Percival. “In this we are united.”

Percival suddenly relaxes. Queenie doesn’t really know what gave him the cue, but his smile is suddenly freer. “Then let us celebrate together.”

“A fine idea,” the Erlking says. He looks at Sam, and Sam just nods. “I had thought of other things, but since we are in company…a feast seems to be in order.”

“Oh, great,” Sam says with a small smile. “So you’re going to go tearing off into the woods and leave me, right?”

“This is a hunt for those who know their craft,” Percival says scornfully.

“What are you all talking about?” Queenie asks.

The Erlking smiles at her, toothy, and Queenie suddenly understands why he made her afraid. He truly is the Lord of the Hunt. “We do not sing for our supper, lady, but hunt for it.”

Queenie’s eyes just about fall out of her head as the Erlking snaps his fingers and, out of the darkness, three huge black stallions fade. Their tack is adorned with tiny bells that ring merrily in the night, eerie chimes singing out in the dark. They look proud and dangerous and Queenie really wants to touch them.

“Three?” Percival asks.

“Do you think I would take a man purely by his looks?” the Erlking says. He looks at Sam with deep fondness and, Queenie thinks, profound respect. “Sam Winchester is the greatest mortal hunter of this age and of many ages before.”

Percival gazes at the two of them, and then looks down at Queenie. “Will you ride with us?” he asks, hand on her shoulder. “It will not be too dangerous, I think, for this is not the ride of the Wild Hunt and we are no trooping faeries.”

“I’ll go,” Queenie says, thinking that Percival’s gone completely crazy. “But—no horse for me?”

“You can ride with me, if you like,” Sam volunteers. He smiles at her, a perfectly human smile, and Queenie grins back. “I think these two might get a little ahead of us.”

Sam and Percival help her up into the saddle. There’s no use trying to preserve modesty when she’s holding onto Sam from behind, flowing skirt hitched up to her thighs. It’s long and wide to begin with, so that’s nice, and she feels bizarrely like she’s a fairy-tale princess, perched behind this ridiculously handsome and muscular man.

“Sorry about this,” Sam says, as the Erlking and Percival attend to their horses. “If I’d known he was going to crash your party, we’d have figured out something else.”

“It’s fine,” Queenie says. “You’re nice.”

Sam laughs. He has a nice one. “So’s he, when he’s not acting all lordly and dignified.”

Queenie glances at Percival, who could very well be a knight on his fiery steed. There are leaves tangled in his hair, she notices, and gold snaking around his wrists and eyes. He is definitely, definitely not human now. “I think Percival is pretty nice all the time,” she says.

Sam looks over his shoulder at her. “Look at us, going and falling for fairies.”

“The temptations of the Fair Folk are many,” Percival says, watching the two of them. His eyes rake over Queenie and she shivers, a little anticipatory of what will happen when they return.

The Erlking passes Percival a bow and a quiver of arrows. “This is no hunt by strength or force of dogs, but of stealth and cunning,” he says, hooking his own quiver to the saddle.

“I can’t use a bow,” Sam volunteers.

“Even so!” the Erlking says. Queenie has no idea where he’s producing these weapons, but between one blink and the next he’s got a rifle in his hand and is giving it to Sam.

“I’d rather not,” Queenie says, waving flippantly when he looks at her. “I ain’t got the skill.”

Percival smiles. “Too sweet natured, I think,” he says. Queenie blushes and hides her face in Sam’s back. He laughs, and she feels him urge the horse into motion.

The gait of the horse is impossibly smooth, carrying them easily. Queenie watches as the dark world flashes past, the streetlights flaring as they pass out of the trees and into the more inhabited areas of the world. She gets the sense that they’ve stepped slightly left of reality, that they aren’t quite where they’re supposed to be anymore. They’ve entered the realm of the Fair Folk.

The horses don’t gallop, but maintain a steady walk. Queenie doesn’t know exactly when it happens, but it seems that the three men spot their quarry at the same time. Silently, Sam raises his arm and points toward where, in the shadows, a hart, a deer with many-branched antlers, browses in the foliage, just visible off the road in the shadows of the streetlight.

She watches as Percival, at a nod from the Erlking, raises his bow and draws back the string. It’s the perfection of an Olympic archer, but more natural, the fluidity of his motion a reminder of exactly what he is. The arrow makes barely a sound as it’s loosed from his bow, and the deer never stood a chance. It crashes to the ground, unmoving.

“I didn’t even get to take a shot,” Sam says plaintively. “Serves me right, hunting with fairies.”

The Erlking laughs. “’tis easy to forget that the king of flowers and wheat fields is also the king of the summer hunt!”

Percival doesn’t react as he swings out of the saddle and lands as lightly as a cat. “The forgotten kings of England rode in my forest,” he says, looking up at the Erlking, and Queenie shivers. “They brought their hounds and paid their blood-prices to me, in thanks for the bounty I provided. And when they did not, they found themselves the quarry.”

There’s half a second of dead silence. Queenie thinks she might have forgotten how to breathe.

And then the Erlking presses his closed fist over his heart and bows his head. “I have offended,” he rumbles. “I will not err again.”

Without effort, Percival lifts the deer carcass and hoists it up over the back of his horse. It doesn’t react, which just confirms that it’s got to be purely made of magic. “No offense is taken,” Percival says smoothly, climbing back up. “Only recall this, when your power waxes strong and you consider riding through the forests of a winter’s night.”

“God, the dick-measuring going on here…why am I dating him?” Sam mutters, as the three horses turn back toward the garden.

“That arrogance…and all these rules are so confusing,” Queenie confides in a low voice.

Sam nods emphatically. “I know exactly what you mean.”

“Wouldn’t trade him, though,” Queenie says, watching Percival riding ahead, straight and tall and beautiful, haloed in gold even in the dark.

Sam laughs low. “I know what you mean by that too.”

Their return to the temple on the lakeshore is surprising. There are other beings there—not as tall as people, and not as recognizable: beings in the water with weedy hair and fish eyes, women leaning from trees to laugh like rustling leaves, sparks of dancing light that are not fireflies but tiny sprites, little flower fairies riding mice and squirrels, and more. Darker things lurk in the shadows, things with fangs and claws and eyes that wink with unsettling red light, and blue will o’wisps dance over the dark waters of the lake. A host of Fair Folk of every shape and size, though none as impressive or imposing as Percival and the Erlking.

“Why are they all here?” Queenie asks, watching the gathering with wide eyes as Percival helps her down from her horse.

“I told you,” Percival says, setting the crown of flowers to rights, “this is a place of power on a marked night. And when two kings, one of summer and one of winter meet here…it’s irresistible.”

Sprites flicker around Queenie’s head, tugging on her hair and resting on her shoulders. Dryads watch her with keen interest as Percival walks with her into the small temple, and whispers ripple among the gnomes on the grass. Percival pays none of the small fey any mind. She looks up to see him smiling at her awe, and can’t help but smile back.

“What’s a mortal doing here?” a bold creature all in green asks. “No mortal belongs in such a place on the equinox!”

“Tonight, she is under my protection,” Percival says, voice brooking no argument. He guides Queenie to sit on a low bench, which she suddenly feels might as well be a throne. “Tonight, you look upon her as you would look upon one of our very queens.”

Whispers and laughter course through the assembly. But the green-clad creature bows, and Queenie feels that she can breathe a little easier. “A queen?” she asks, looking up at Percival.

“My queen,” he says, green eyes shimmering.

The night is a blaze of golden light and magic. There is food, the best food Queenie’s ever eaten in her life, fruits she can’t name and fruits she can, given to her like pomegranates to Persephone. The deer Percival caught is somehow multiplied at the Erlking’s command, and Queenie remembers the smell of it cooking over a fire full of slithering flaming salamanders, and remembers Percival feeding it to her with his own hands.

She remembers dancing, endless dancing, to the music of strange flutes and gleaming harps and pounding drums. She remembers her feet bleeding and not caring at all, spinning now in Percival’s arms and now in Sam’s and now in the Erlking’s. Queenie remembers being draped in flowers by elves, and naiads offering strings of freshwater pearls to wrap around her neck and arms.  

Contests of strength, of lifting and throwing and wrestling, some of which Queenie remembers Sam winning. A contest or two of arms, bright swords flashing in the night, the loser skewered through the heart or beheaded, body fading in the gloom and forgotten. Riddling contests, at which Queenie excels, winning against crouching things that live in caves and dryads with the wisdom of the trees.

And she remembers Percival pulling her away into the trees, remembers stripping out of her clothes and making love to him with the wild festival happening just out of sight. Remembers the heat of his body on hers, his sharp teeth nipping her collarbone, his hands on her face. Remembers kissing her way down his body, following the tracks of gold magic that sprawl across his skin on this eerie night, to take him in her mouth until he’s shouting her name. Remembers crying out in his arms, half out of her mind and begging him for more, caught in the wild magic loose in the air.

She remembers seeing Sam with bite marks trailing down his chest and a dazed look in his eyes, standing at the Erlking’s side, and knowing that she’s not alone in her dizzy ecstasy tonight. She remembers Percival’s terrible fey smile, the way he looked at her as if she were a creature of magic like him. She remembers the Erlking’s laugh and the sound of his hunting horn. She remembers the wheeling stars and the Fair Folk in their endless dancing and feasting. Queenie remembers all of this, and more.

The strange thing is that Queenie doesn’t remember the night ending.

She wakes up the next morning in her own bed, slightly sore all over, a few twigs in her hair. She’s been firmly tucked in, and after a moment she realizes why. It’s cold in the room, and when Queenie sits up she sees rain pattering on the windowpanes, a gray sky beyond. “Oh,” she murmurs. “I forgot. It’s fall now, ain’t it?”

After a bit, Queenie gets herself out of bed. She doesn’t bother dressing up or wearing any makeup—Tina’s off at the conference with Newt, which is why she’s not here to ask questions about how Queenie’s long-distance English boyfriend is spontaneously in America. A sweatshirt and jeans are fine, and she knows Percival won’t mind.

He’s not in the house, but out the glass of the back door she can see him sitting on the back step, just under the awning. She pushes out the door and sits down beside him, watching the cold rain fall. In the daylight, Percival looks very ordinary. He doesn’t look like the ancient fey lord she’d been with last night, the King of the Forest, power equal to that of the Lord of the Wild Hunt. He just looks like Percival.

“Feeling all right?” Percival asks finally, putting an arm around her shoulders.

“I feel wonderful,” Queenie murmurs, snuggling into his side.

She can hear Percival’s smile. “I thought you’d be all right,” he says. “It’s dangerous, to have a mortal at one of our feasts.”

“Are you all right?” Queenie asks, turning her head a bit to look up at him.

He sounds a little detached. “I’m fine,” he says. “Only…you see the weather. My power is on the wane, for the sun is going on her way. Autumn has come, and the days grow ever shorter. You have only ever known me at the height of my power, not diminished as I shall soon be.”

Queenie reaches up to take his hand. “You ain’t diminished from where I am,” she says.

Percival kisses the top of her head. “Thank you,” he says.

There’s a moment of silence, broken only by the rain.

“I only hope that poor Sam Winchester understands what he’s gotten into,” Percival says with a small laugh. “I am as kind as summer can be, and am divorced from the crueler aspects of the forest. You have seen the half of me that is Winter…”

Queenie thinks of the awful man she’d met, creepy and pale like ice, and shivers. “Yeah.”

“But the Erlking is only one thing,” Percival goes on. “He is only the Hunt. He is the spirit of blood and the chase, and that makes him predictable, but more dangerous than I could ever be.”

“You think he’ll hurt Sam?”

Percival shrugs. “I think he looks upon Sam Winchester as prey to be chased,” he says. “A quarry of love. And that can only end in pain.”

That’s a nasty thought, and Queenie shivers. “So…what do you think of me?”

“I love you, Queenie Goldstein,” Percival says, moving so he can look into her eyes. He holds her hands tightly, and she squeezes them right back. “As a knight loves a lady, as a man loves a woman, as the sun loves the moon.”

Her heart does a little thump. She knows enough to know how serious it is, for a creature like Percival to make that claim. “I love you, Percival,” she says, and feels the shock of magic between them, as if they’ve made a bargain. And maybe they have. Maybe they haven’t.

Either way, Queenie’s ready for it.


End file.
